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Topic: Blending Malts (Read 1548 times)

I am looking at a recipe that calls for pale malt. I don't have that on hand, but do have MO and 2-row available. Can I blend these together to create a similar taste and color profile of the pale malt?

Yes, I do this a lot. Rather than doing a 50/50 blend, I like to use up one and make up the rest with the other. Take your pick.

Randy Mosher in his book Radical Brewing also advocated blending to build complexity. He suggests thinking about ingredients as a spectrum, much like a portrait artist would blend different hues of paint on their palette to create the hue that he or she wants, rather than just using globs of one thing and another. Either will work but it depends what you want. If you spread things out you also ensure you'll hit the target. For example, a beer with just 2-row and Crystal 40 is not going to be as complex as 2-row, Maris Otter, Crystal 20, 40, and 60. It's more the shotgun approach than the sharpshooter, but it's another thing worth trying.

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Dave

The world will become a much more pleasant place to live when each and every one of us realizes that we are all idiots.

I am looking at a recipe that calls for pale malt. I don't have that on hand, but do have MO and 2-row available. Can I blend these together to create a similar taste and color profile of the pale malt?

FWIW, both of those are in fact pale malt. Depending on the maltster of the MO, it might be closer to a pale ale malt. In general, pale malt and what's referred to as "2 row" are the same thing. And almost every barley malt out there will be 2 row.

I am looking at a recipe that calls for pale malt. I don't have that on hand, but do have MO and 2-row available. Can I blend these together to create a similar taste and color profile of the pale malt?

FWIW, both of those are in fact pale malt. Depending on the maltster of the MO, it might be closer to a pale ale malt. In general, pale malt and what's referred to as "2 row" are the same thing. And almost every barley malt out there will be 2 row.

FWIW, both of those are in fact pale malt. Depending on the maltster of the MO, it might be closer to a pale ale malt. In general, pale malt and what's referred to as "2 row" are the same thing. And almost every barley malt out there will be 2 row.

Good point. I fall into this same trap. It's carryover from when we started brewing way back in the 1990s, when 6-row was very common. Remember those days, man?

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Dave

The world will become a much more pleasant place to live when each and every one of us realizes that we are all idiots.